A Visionary Platform of Architecture

Interconnected Neutral Nuclei

International Open Competition Europan 2013
The brief for the competition was to propose a development where a variety of open spaces and typologies would be present and where pedestrian paths would lead directly from landscape to the centre of the new neighbourhood. The proposal would provide the setting of strong rules for the development of the built surface and the rationalization of the infrastructures, preventing unnecessary consumption of soil. Such rules were: a) delimitation of not constructible surfaces (courtyards); b) integration of existing buildings into the new scheme, adopting similar width/height for new buildings; c) continuity of the built environment around the voids; d) reduction of the motorways and increasing of alternative paths.

The project would adopt a strategy of cohabitation between nature and community, setting up not just a fixed plan, but a model which would provide its intrinsic rules for expansion.

The arrangement of the new units around the courtyards would follow that of the existing buildings, completing and connecting the actual sequence on the site. The future courtyards would preserve the existing forest as it is and would integrate the natural conditions, the trees and the soil into the developing neighborhood. In this way the recreational areas would merge completely with the built units and contribute to the identity of the project. The morphology of the development and the relationship between the single houses, mediated by the large courtyards, aimed at creating a sense of community in what is today a suburban context.
The proposed model combined the compacity of built space, the optimisation of resources (spatial and environmental) with a sequence of open spaces that claim for informal occupations, leisure activities and, in general, shared spaces for the whole of the community. The commonplaces of suburbia would be avoided in favour of a more compact scale that provides, at the same time, the humus for collective habitat.